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Lesson Info

Shoot: Bourdoir Posing

All right, this is the beautiful lexie sam's. So I'm gonna have you come on over and sit right here. So yes, we need him to come out. Make sure this is on for me. So I usually shoot the head shot first and I shoot a headshot on everything I do. The reason why I do that is so I have a chance to break the ice between me and the subject. Andi, I've been shooting like, see all week, and I still feel like every time we sit down, we're starting a new shoot. So I've been doing this three or thirty five years now and I still have butterflies in my tummy. There's something may or may not work too. So the light may not be just so that's. Not something that's going to go away in your life is a photographer, but a part of what you do. You come in, you tweak the light. You get everything ready. You have to turn it on your set. Ready? Go do one test shot. Take one picture. Look at it. Judge your exposure, judge the makeup. Look at the outfit. Is it doing exactly what you want? Then we're all through...

it if you break the ice by just posing the face. And then the hands by the time you get back to the body guess what you've done you've taken the total edge off the whole photo shoot thank you very much so our modeling like that great so the other day we use something I had here called the eye lighter um this is scooped out reflector from westcott that I love I also have one that I've made from myself out of these cake pan boards that I get a party city and it's like seven dollars and fifty cents when you're first getting started as a photographer, you might want to think about using something that so you can learn how to use and manipulate the light you can do it with two or one this one's really shiny but they make them that are matt and the ones that are of the mat sheen are going to be a little bit more forgiving and easy media polite delight closer you put the reflector underneath the head the more phil you're going to get in the eyes and the more smoothing you're going to get on the skin so I never ever, ever do a photo shoot without a professional makeup artist when I do something edgy like what we have going on here I asked for makeup to have contrast in impact, so when we were in the back I asked samantha I said can you give me that makeup that would have high contrast around this part it's almost like stage makeup and the reason why I do that it's the intensity of the pose in the light all kind of go together it's kind of like having the right shoes and the right dress the right person right here and make up together to have the impact it's just perfectly planned if anything needs to be addressed I concede on that first picture and then I asked for that then I proceed most of the time I'm from the south and women don't put sunscreen on except about right here now more people are putting it here so we see a lot of textural color change from here to here, so I asked usually from the makeup to come all the way down to the top of the bra reach if they sprayed on it's even easier to dio but guess what it's going to do if you re touching time if you light it beautifully and filling nicely under the face and have great makeup, you're just gonna be tweaking around the eyes a little bit smoothing out so no, you're artist and make sure that you know what you're goingto achieve in every shot before you sit down all right I'm gonna give you this little guy awesome! So how are you? I'm good so I'm going to shoot straight through this I'll do the face hands and so forth and let you watch then, when we're done, I want to interview with lexie and let her tell you a little bit about what she thinks is an amazing experience for her to be connected with this a photographer with a photographer if she comes to a photo shoot, what makes her feel great on what makes her feel kind of, you know, not so comfortable, so you can kind of get an idea of where your boundaries are and what's considered great and what's considered kind of creeper um, you know, and there's, you know what? Everybody's comfort zone within, what within themselves, it's all different from one another, especially in modern times, and that doesn't mean that everybody has a chance that the opportunity be a creeper, but sometimes people say things and they don't realize how they come across. So when you were in the boudoir and glamour world, I want to make sure you say choose the right words to say and acting in a very positive way. All right? So I'm going to zoom right in, and I've got eighty five here, and I'm going to shoot a couple of test shots here, beautiful, right, so we did a little pre test eso one hundred we don't have any ambient light, so I'm not worried about my shutter speed. I'm going to keep it around sixty or maybe to one hundred, so I'm going to start out let's, roll your shoulders forward just a little bit, bring your forehead toward toward me and bring chan out down. Beautiful, all right, awesome! We're completely blown out take our eyes so down to one hundred, gorgeous, beautiful, awesome! And then once again, I always stop and check my history ram, if I'm working with something in a high key, um, zone like this, I have a tennessee like things on the hierarchy, but I always want to make sure that I have detail in the white, because if it's blown out, you can't recover it and you're going to be doing skin patches and things like that and it's difficult to deal with one picture's really all it takes the first one I was over exposed the second when I'm a little more on if you're working with a cheer makeup, our hd makeup that has luminescence in it and you shoot high key, you want to check the details and make sure that it's not reflecting back at you, it will appear like it's, sharp and captured here, and if you don't check your instagram, you'll get in trouble when you start doing your retouching wish I had noticed that it was reflective. It's very trendy and in right now so sometimes I'll ask for matt make up if I'm going to do something really high key pale white all right, so gorgeous. Bring your head round toward me beautiful chin down a little bit close your lips for me beautiful. Back up just a touch so in each photograph her head is toward me and down every single time she's connecting with me beautiful. Awesome alright listen now have your chest lift up a little bit to keep turn your body a little more to the side. Great can you put your left hand may be out on your hip turn your shots and shoulders a little bit there where your forehead toward me and down a little bit beautiful, awesome let's do a couple of nail with a hand and just kind of pull your fingers close to your head around to the side it's barely touching your face beautiful chin down for head toward me. Great. When you had around this way a little bit great. Now put your hand on the side beautiful sparks, roll your shoulders forward just a little bring your forehead toward man down, smiling with your eyes beautiful lettering head around to this a little bit beautiful to head straight toward me again gorgeous alright let's do both hands can do a little asymmetrical you composed to one up and down so her skin tone and her makeup and her neck and chest and everything's kind of almost the same color and she doesn't have any discoloration on the inside of her palm so I know that that's probably no kind of be troublesome for me later when I retouched I'm okay with shooting a couple more shots with her hands around her face but sometimes if you live in a cold environment you'll see people with purple fingers and purple palms if I have a severe case of that I might even have the makeup put a little found it bancha parts put little foundation on their fingers because it's just easier for me to retouch after beautiful awesome beautiful you can shift them just a little bit went up one down gorgeous so the shoulder position gives motivation interpose in the head leaning in its what's talking to me if you if you think about the way you communicate even with your friend's not necessarily person that you're involved with personally but we all kind of leaned toward each other and when we like someone we even get close to them so the whole feel I'm trying to go for when I'm drawing that out of someone in the beginning how to how to make that happen for the shoulders and the body and the hands in the face, and all the expressions were smiling or grinning or giggling all have that same ambition to them, so all right, I think what I'm going to do now, since I've seen so many beautiful shots is maybe we can go ahead and less work around the whole chair, so in before we step away from it, I shot the head shot first, and I think she doesn't have the road with her, but I wouldn't be opposed. I was shooting somebody to have the robe wrapped around their lap to keep them warm. There's a couple of things that you guys can have on your set to make it really nice for the model. There are battery operated heating pads that you can lay on the chair or put near them for the lei on and there's something to have it home depot called hot hands, and you shake it or break it, and it gets hot. I put it anyway, I lived in new york, I used to put him in my coat pocket to keep my hands warm so you can put things like that in and around the subject to keep them warm, like hidden in part of the props, just so that they feel great if you're running around in your studio and your hot and sweaty and then you should do to somebody than their underwear. There probably be chilly and I find that no matter how warm or cool I am the models are always chilean it's because they're moving less than we are so you want to make sure there are totally comfortable I have got something to drink and all those good things all right, so let's do let's have some fun? You want to help me take break this at this right in front of her? So I'm going to start with her sitting since she's already there and, you know, one of the first things that I wanted to do when I was talking to you earlier about great poses to put people in lexi has amazing arms and legs, a long, narrow body s o for me, she's going to be fun deposed because I could move around in so many different directions if there's any limitation, she might be too big and length to fit into something small, but I want to do so. When we were picking the prop chair, I picked something that she could probably move around in a lot, so this chair shaped like a heart, which made it really kind of a cute whole beginning to the boudoir seeing her and we picked out the outfit which fund outfit fredericks and it was it was a cute girl thing on sale right so her shoes we picked the shoes to kind of have the little baby doll look about that so my lighting is not the challenge on this I'm just going to roll through the poses so you guys can get in idea we moved away the phil card so her face is not going to read it's beautifully lit so what I usually do when I don't have a way to put any phil underneath is the head goes towards the light so in the beginning and you only have one or two lights you're always going to want a face to be drawn to the light and however you need to remember that is all women want to be smooth and elongated and then so possibly there in that bag there's a seventy two three hundred twenty four two one o five might work find too I'm going to switch up the land so I don't go all the way back to the camera yes thank you thank you beautiful so do you see how she is sitting in the chair kind of flatly and this year you know she's resting she's not really posing for me yet so what I want to do is bring you to the very front of the chair so that you're literally sitting on your left hip did you notice how I turned that around for her her left hit so she's thinking my left here instead of going out does she mean by right hamper to my left hip? So you have I jokingly call it taking upside down and backwards you know it's kind of you have to turn yourself around and pretend for a minute you're over there posing my left her left hip so is much direction you get what you're hoping to attain so now by having her sit on the edge that is no longer squished now let's, bring your front knee all the way down to this beautiful alright you comfortable? Great so now I'm going to turn her upper body around to hear and what we've done now is he longer and make s curves let's roll you shoe on your right foot all the way on the tip of the toe opposite of that beautiful, so much prettier that is so I do a light first so that all I have to do now is talk to her about her face so and I still have to move back just a touch beautiful, wonderful. All right, lift your head up and kind of turn up to the ceiling profile beautiful tuck your tummy in I need to raise the light out just a little bit, so since we've moved the reflector away from under her face, we're probably going to lose a stop online so when you go to set your take your readings when you get home and you put that reflector right here is gonna have a have stop even if you're using one light because it's doubling it back into the place I think sal let's do one test shot all right roll up on your sit bone on your hip great turn your chest and shoulders around this way beautiful let me take one little test beautiful. All right, let's, take a peek there we go. All right, let's see if we can get a little bit more of a kick in your hip up this way beautiful. Alright, relax your fingers now did you guys watch the change in her body? She kind of rolled up on her hip bone our shoulders rolling forward gives her a little bit more motivation of moving forward. All right, so here we go. Roll up on the tip of your toe beautiful also beautiful let's do a couple with your hands kind of like behind your head with your elbows out so limbs don't come for it before toward the camera because y for shortening member that word so an elbow coming toward the camera looks like weird shape so elbows and arms out fingers together beautiful roll up on your hip bone again point your toe back beautiful once you laugh for a couple of big smiling, laughed awesome uh this hand by your necklace turn it more behind your head total elbows out beautiful completely had your fingers down the back of your back beautiful. You continue head side to side both spread a little further lift up in the chest and turn toward me a little more awesome. Good. Could your right hand down on your hip? Beautiful gorgeous. Alright, when did you go all the way down to here? Almost come off the cheer in fact beautiful. Is that going to work? Roll up on the tip of your toe and the front toe up on your toe as well. All right, you can come back and do more of this maybe take a curl of hair twirl it around beautiful take your left hand and put it on your hip that's even better. Beautiful great! Put your right hand on your hip. Put your elbow out. Great awesome closure lips form in your mouth great, beautiful. All right, let's, take a peek at all of those together. So what I usually do will stop. I review what I'm looking for is the best angle in turn of the hips and the legs in the body where I make the tummy like the tiniest. Then the body looked the bast and once I see that, then I go back and repeat that I'm not going to do that today, but that's, how you want to think so once you find the magic picture that's where your photo shoot begins, you follow me on that so not fifteen pictures stop, go look at him, send the girl home and they would say, I wonder why I didn't put her hand down. You know that one flaw will be repeated. Sometimes people have to learn the hard way, like what isn't working until they see it and then you re touching up for two hours trying to fix it. Put another hand on somebody's hand to fix something, and I've had to do that for commercial jobs and it's, not fun, so you want to be is tight and refined as possible. So what I'd like to do now is to show you guys how I would treat someone with really curvy hips, so I usually put the knees together like this, and you sit straight toward me, bring your feet out toward me and then put the elbows down on the knee. Use your forearm to see if you get a little cleavage working and then take one hand folded, roll your hips around a little bit let's, get a beautiful leg line, grab your ankle, arch your back, you should tell me, forward, that's, beautiful see how that works so vanishing point and any s shape is going to be a curvy line on the one this body so now if there was anything back there it would be hidden in the chair and if you put a little curvy skirt that's also hidden otherwise you're going to be pushing and you know liquefying and things on the hip so powerful controlled poses lift your chin were more to the sky turned one more profile to me eyes it may roll around toward me sexy both eyes great don't you laugh while you're there beautiful, beautiful awesome all right let's try a couple more where you're may be on your knees in the chair with your feet to the side is there enough room on the front of it that's pretty that's really pretty can use it that's beautiful now it just kind of pull your hands up into the air like gorgeous absolute gorgeous so I'm going to stand up and shoot down so I'm not shooting right into her knees because your needs are coming toward me so part of your posing is not just for her but what's good for you as a photographer is selfish as that may sound I tell most photographers you just need to move a little bit don't stand in one place and take a bad picture you have to work around it too just like she does so beautiful awesome laugh a little bit beautiful pose awesome it's beautiful all right, can we move the chair and do a couple standing yeah that's to pull it off in what like five more shots so people can see how I write role so my average photo shoot last twenty minutes for me not the whole thing our for the make up twenty minutes twenty five minutes I process everything the minute I shoot it most people go home and can look at the images before they go to bed I want the job done while the payment still included you know I mean, who wants to be sitting there on sunday when everybody's going to the ball game and you've got two thousand million pictures at it it's cheaper for you to have somebody there to help you edit the pictures while you're doing it than it is to wait to try to do it all at one time also you have about twenty four hours to maintain that enthusiasm they ran out the door with to show them the pictures if you wait a wait they're going to get pissed off so don't do that bee is ambitious is they are keep the joy flying while you haven't that's perfect that's perfect all right let's do a really strong kind of on an angle pose and you could do fisted hands if you want, so just don't rock the elbows back so I want to take a second just show me those hands I was talking about because the hands are going to ruin it for you you know have have you ever had somebody put their hands in her pockets and roller hands over like that it's like overacting almost so your hands you want to keep what you want to place him there to keep it soft let's do the first so we can see that beautiful alright see how their kind of rolled down can you hold your wrist right? All right, so that's more an athletic hand loosens the sexy hand with fingers out in the soft and pretty you're more confident and our fingers were together show bad hands with the fingers all separated cross your arms a bad hand okay, now I want to show them a little just a little cleavage with your upper arms so playboy pose this part of the arm lifting to cleave a job not to the point of ridiculousness but we're talking about just a little on the hands or relaxed so that's even if all right absolutely stunning. All right, kick your hip up just a little on the side beautiful gorgeous put your left hand on your hip now hear beautiful lean into your hips and kick your hip a little more you pull the hand back up I love that gorgeous turn. You have a little on the profile. Beautiful. Exaggerate your pose just a little bit gorgeous. So the the words you use have to give exactly what you want to see. Lexi, you are so pretty, isn't she? I want to meet her mom. I haven't met her mom yet. Lexie, thank you so much. I think we're going to wrap it up so we can have our little interview. Which mind giving her a robe? Maybe bring her chair back. We're going to do a little quick talk. You'd think awesome. So I'll let you sit if you want. All right. So this morning, all this whole week, we've been talking about so many things you and I and about things that we see and other people, you know, seen so many amazing photographers. Well, there's, just as many people learning here this week that we've watched shooting and, you know, we started talking about what's the greatest thing to happen on a photo shoot is or the greatest kind of relationship for her. So as you're like traveling all around all over the world, doing all these amazing things you've done can you come to give us an idea of what a perfect scenario is for a photographer? From the start, you know, like, if they called you for a shoot, how they how they may respect you when you're standing on the set and how what they tell you, they want what's the perfect scenario, I guess biggest thing is like communication, like, were people like you are, you know, and we're ah, we kind of want to be on the same page is everybody and just exactly is loose on this whole time and just tell me exactly what you want, you know, and that's it's easy, we listened very easily think we've gone tio situations where you felt like you weren't in the best comfort zone or no, I won't say scary, but maybe just a little uncomfortable scenario can you give us an idea of what not to do? Maybe like two or three things? So, like the first thing that pops in your mind and then two or three other things that you've been like? I don't know if that's cool. Um, my my biggest thing is probably like, if a photographer's don't ask me to move a certain way, they just feel the way they could move me and especially women like physically talking about her head yeah, yeah, and, you know, especially like with shoots like this that are more sexy and sensual, it's like you know, it's just kind of easier on us and more stress free just tow tell us how to do it instead of moving our bodies, right? Well, we were you know, I've I've been to a million photo shoots and I've had great things happen bad things happen, and I hope that I can share with you enough of my bad experiences so that you can kind of foresee that, but I will say to you that there's never as time went on, my photo shoots when something doesn't get for gotten or whatever we're not we're all human beings and we're perfect, and the most important thing that you need to do when you're shooting is remember that your subject is a human being and that they have feelings and they may not be is used to being around glamour boudoir situations as you are, you know, my I probably shot when I say five hundred ninety seven editorials for playboy, I'm totally comfortable when people change clothes in front of me and things like that, and I don't gawk at them or anything like that. I'm used to that, but there is a way I don't care how many times I've done this I act as if that person has never had that experience before, and I'm a gracious and kind and respectful always in my own working environment is usually a boxes candy sitting there, I very rarely have alcohol on the set because it never turns out great if you want to end with champagne. That's, how you ask somebody to look sleepy is to give him a couple glasses of wine and then try to take a picture of them. And not to mention you're asking yourself for problems later. You know, always somebody might not be have eight and and then you. Next thing you know, you can't pull off the shoot you started. Thank you so much, like the spend delight working with you. So I gave her all the examples of what we've had to shoot this week and ask her what to bring and she's done exactly that. So if you know what you want to shoot, you tell everyone you're going to have a success. They're going to watch the photo shoot itself change in your life as a photographer by asking for what you want and every step of it. Thank you guys.